


Living

by Twyd



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Angst, Awkward Crush, Childhood Trauma, Crushes, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Family, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Past Character Death, Pre-Slash, School, Slash, Teenagers, Yakuza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 18:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14243127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: AU. Izaya is adopted by Shiki and the Awakusu-Kai after his family are killed in a tragic accident. Shizuo is the hapless delivery boy who falls in love with him.





	Living

It is the summer holidays. Izaya is so bored he aches. He goes out, he sees Shinra, he goes to the mall, to the pool, does casual jobs for the Awakusu-Kai. He and Shiki have a piano, but it is too hot for anything that requires his concentration. It is too hot for anything that’s not lounging around with a book from Shiki’s library and the AC turned up. He only gets up for bodily needs or when the doorbell goes. Like now.

Shiki has deliveries everyday, which, being out of school, Izaya is nearly always home to sign for. The delivery boy is always the same, a blonde his age, always seemed to be red in the face, either annoyed, embarrassed for some reason or too hot.

“Hi,” the delivery boy says now, holding out a package. “Shiki Haruya?”

He says the name every time, even though he knows the man lives here, has brought him at least 100 parcels in the last year alone.

“Yep.”

Izaya takes the offered device and signs his initials electronically. He takes the parcel and says thank you. He’d about to shut the door when the delivery boy says,

“Do you know Kishitani Shinra?”

Izaya blinks at him. It is the first thing the other has said to him that is not ‘hi’ or ‘thank you’ or ‘Shiki Haruya.’

“Yes?” he says, question in his voice, although he is really not interested at all. He doesn’t know how or why his friendship with Shinra had lasted.

“I know him. He mentioned you.”

Izaya stares at him patiently, until the other gets flustered and ducks his gaze.

“Sorry. See you.”

Izaya stares after him in confusion. He hadn’t meant to be cruel, but he hadn’t known what he was meant to do either. Making friends had never been a strong point of his, even before what happened. He knows how to talk to people, he just doesn’t find them interesting enough to make an effort with. He keeps a handful of friends around to keep Shiki and Kine from worrying about him, for he knows they do worry about him, even though he’d never cut himself or done any of the things they worry about. He’s OK. He’s not exactly cheerful, but he’s OK.

He goes back to his book and forgets all about the delivery boy.

-

Shiki gets home at a reasonable hour, so they have dinner together. Izaya likes Shiki. He likes how Shiki talks to him like he is an adult, an approach he had adopted more or less since taking Izaya in when he was 11 years old.

After the funeral, there had been some kind of mix up amongst his relatives about who was to take care of him, and as a result he’d been left with no-one at all.

Izaya didn’t mind. He didn’t like many of his other relatives much. He keeps going to school, makes his own lunch, lets the teachers fuss over him, until the food runs out and the electricity is turned off, and even he knows he can’t keep it up

It is Kine who finds him. He has been sent to collect a debt of his father’s that Izaya knew nothing about.

Izaya knows all about the Awakusu-Kai. He thinks they’re awesome, like dark guardians of the city, not quite superheroes but something much better.

He tells Kine that his parents are dead, and that no-one else lives here. Kine doesn’t believe him until he sees the house. He is kind to Izaya then.

-

Izaya is taken to the Awakusu-Kai headquarters. He's quite flattered that Kine’s going to so much effort on his behalf. He’d expected the man to regretfully but inevitably drop him off at the nearest social services centre. He’s almost enjoying himself.

They leave him with tea in a room meant for receiving guests, while they go to another one to talk. He knows what they’re talking about. Whether he goes to relatives or foster parents or a home is all the same, he knows he’ll be sent out of Ikebukuro, his correspondence with Shinra and a few others will waver and eventually drop off all together, and he’ll come here one day as an adult and it’ll be like he never lived here at all. He sips his tea.

They are in the other room for some time.

Izaya has almost finished his tea by the time three of them come out. One of them is somehow familiar. He sees Izaya staring and says,

“Do you remember me?”

Izaya shakes his head.

“I knew your father.”

“You didn’t come to the funeral.”

An observation, not an accusation, but it still not the way to talk to an Awakusu-Kai Executive. The man doesn’t look offended, however.

“I’m very sorry,” he says, so sincerely that it chokes Izaya up. He think this may be one of the few people who really are sorry for him.

Kine and Akabayashi are looking at him warily, as if he has a pet kitten that needs to be put down, and they need to figure out how to tell him without him throwing a fit.

Kine sits across from him and gently tells him that he can’t live on his own.

Izaya nods along. He knows all this. There is a pretty pattern in the bottom of his cup. He tilts the cup to swill the remaining tea from side to side to try and make it out.

“Izaya, would you like to live with Shiki-san for a while?”

Izaya looks up so fast he almost has whiplash. He stares at Kine, and then stares at Shiki.

“I’d take you in myself,” Kine is saying. “But as Shiki knew your father…”

“Only if you want to,” Shiki says, staring at him. “If you’re not comfortable we can make other arrangements.”

Izaya stares back. He doesn’t know much about Shiki, except that he is in awe of the other man, like most of the city is, that he is quiet yet powerful and intelligent and probably has a simple yet beautiful home right in the heart of Tokyo.

“I want to,” he hears himself saying, and Shiki smiles for the first time.

“All right, then. Let’s go and get your things.”

-

The house is mostly empty, the relatives having seen to the majority of Izaya’s family’s belongings. Shiki is respectful in the space, helping Izaya pack up his things, not touching anything else.

“How did you know my father?” Izaya asks him.

“We worked on something together once,” he says. “I liked him very much. But I think once your sisters were on the way he wanted to be a real family man, and he started working in the same corporation as your mother instead. We didn’t keep in touch, sadly.”

Izaya packs a separate box for some of his sisters toys, his mother’s jewelry, his father’s notebooks, other momentos. He finds his sisters’ birth certificates along with his own, and has to cry in Shiki’s arms for a long time.

The other belongings and the furniture and eventually the house itself is eventually sold.

Shiki keeps the receipts and makes copies of them, helps Izaya open a savings account for it all. This, with his parents life savings and the insurance he’ll get when he’s 18, mean he is rich. This time last week he had been rationing his instant noodles.

“You can do whatever you like with it, of course,” Shiki tells him. “But I would save the bulk of it for an apartment one day or university, perhaps a car.”

He agrees. He trusts Shiki and Kine, but he wants the power to keep himself safe. He’s suddenly humbled by all Shiki and the others have done for him, his throat thick with it.

“I want to buy you something.”

Shiki ruffles his hair.

“We’ll have plenty of birthdays and holidays together, I’m sure. You can buy me something then.”

So Izaya stays with Shiki, has some school holidays with Kine, occasionally stays with Akabayashi when neither of them are available, as Shiki won’t allow him to be left alone for more than a few days, even if he would prefer it that way.

His relatives don’t get in touch. At first he thinks this is only temporary, until one of them eventually come for him, but a year passes with nothing. Perhaps they’d sent Christmas and birthday cards that had been returned, assumed he’d moved away. Izaya’s family were not a close-knit one. His parents were not close to anyone except their own parents, who are now either senile or dead. He later overheard Shiki say that if they ever did get in touch he’d be more inclined to pay them off than hand Izaya over.

‘He deserves better,’ Shiki had said. That had made Izaya warm in a way he hadn’t felt for a long time.

Shiki tells him things, takes him to visit his family’s graves, buys him well made clothes and things for school, makes him a healthy lunch for school and has dinner with him, even though Izaya had more than enough money to keep himself, plays chess with him, teaches him languages and the piano. He offers to get him a pet, but Izaya doesn’t want to outlive anything for a little while.

Still, Izaya never expected it to last. He has nights when he misses his parents so much he can’t sleep, days when he can’t eat, and Shiki is patient through all of it, holding him through his crying, never talks of tracing his relatives, never sends him to Akabayashi or someone else for a break. His sisters were little more than babies but he misses them too, misses them all like an ache, a pain that will never go or hunger he can never fill.

A doctor does come to see him at first, one who specialises in bereaved children, but after their first session he suggests a kind of medication for Izaya to try, and Izaya never sees him again. Yes, he is very lucky to have Shiki-san.

He takes Izaya with him on business trips sometimes, usually ones where he’s quite friendly with whoever he’s meeting, and will leave Izaya with a bicycle and some money to explore, and catch up with him in the evening. The best had been in view of a volcano he forgets the name of, that still spewed at a distance.

They live in a cottage away from the main drag of houses. Shiki has an apartment in the city too, a brilliant, space-age like thing, but Shiki often has his business meetings there and doesn’t like it much. The cottage is closer to school, too. This is where Izaya lounges with Shiki’s books, in the shade or in the bath or various other points in the house.

Kine calls him from Seoul for a chat. He tries to make himself sound more upbeat than he feels.

He finishes one of Shiki’s books, and immediately goes to get another.

The doorbell chimes. He sighs, even though he wasn’t particularly riveted. He drops the book without marking his page and answers the door.

“Hi.”

It is the delivery boy, at his usual time. He doesn’t say ‘Shiki Haruya?’ this time. Perhaps he is offended over Izaya’s silence last time. Izaya takes the little device and signs.

“Is he your Dad?”

Izaya looks up. It takes him a moment to realise he means Shiki.

“No.” Sensing another uncomfortable silence about to develop, he adds, “He’s my guardian.” He realises this doesn’t make things any clearer, so he says, “My parents are dead.”

He wants to kick himself, this is way too much information, but the boy doesn’t look like he wants to bolt.

“I’m sorry.”

Izaya takes Shiki’s package, and hands back the little device. The boy is still looking at him.

“What are you doing this afternoon?”

Izaya blinks at him.

“Nothing? I’m just reading.”

“Do you want to do something?”

“Don’t you have to do this?” He gestures at Shizuo’s bag and bike.

“You’re the last,” he says. “Your house, I mean. Cuz you’re on the end.”

“Oh,” Izaya says. He thinks about this. “Do you want to come in?”

He lets the boy enjoy the AC while he goes to get drinks for them both, iced tea for himself, milk for the other. He realises he still doesn’t know his name.

“Shizuo,” he says. “Shizuo Heiwajima. I know your Izaya from your mail and from Shinra.”

“How do you know Shinra?”

They talk. There is something off about the other boy that Izaya can’t suss out. Not off but...different. It intrigues him.

They’re talking when Shizuo finishes the last of his milk, and somehow breaks the glass in his hand. Izaya jumps up as he cries out. Shizuo keeps apologising and trying to leave, and Izaya has to keep hold of him to coax him to the sink where he can wash the glass and the blood from his hand.

“It’s OK,” Izaya keeps saying. Shizuo’s eyes are downcast, his cheeks burning. Izaya suddenly recalls who the other boy is. “I do know you,” he says. “Shinra’s told me all about you.”

Shizuo glares at him. He tries to take his hand back, and Izaya tightens his grip. They stare at each other. He should be afraid but he isn’t.

“Its OK,” he repeats.

Shizuo blinks at this and looks away.

“Don’t treat me like a circus freak.”

“I won’t.”

He pulls Shizuo’s wrist back into the stream of water and finds the first aid kit, wraps his up in silence. He somehow knows Shizuo won’t want another glass of milk.

“See you tomorrow,” he says at the door, even though he doesn’t know if he has any mail, and Shizuo just mumbles something and takes off. Izaya stares after him like he had done the day before, feeling like he’s awake for the for the first time in years.

-

Part of him expects Shizuo to swap his route with someone else, but he is there the next day, embarrassed and shy and with his hand in a fresh bandage.

They hang out a lot after that.

They go on bike rides, they stay in Shiki’s home when it rains, they go to the park, the mall, the pool, all things Izaya had been doing anyway but with renewed pleasure. He meets Shizuo’s apathetic little brother. He gets in the habit of waiting for Shizuo to finish his route, preparing towels if it was raining, a glass of milk if it was hot.

Shizuo has a few more incidents, but they seem to upset him more than they upset Izaya. Izaya has incidents of his own, were he’s suddenly overcome with the urge to cry, sometimes so strong he feels he may be sick, and Shizuo deals with this as coolly and kindly as Izaya does with his tantrums.

They hang out with Shinra sometimes, but Izaya prefers it when it’s just them, when they can have a real conversation, and he thinks Shizuo does too.

He thinks Shiki is oblivious to all this, but one night, when he’s heading for his room from the bath, he hears Akabayashi comment,

“There’s something different about Izaya lately. Do you think he’s got a girlfriend?”

“I was thinking that. I don't know, to be honest. He hasn’t said anything. I’ll wait for him to bring it up if he wants to. He’s mature enough to not do anything stupid.”

Izaya smiles to himself, thinking how he’ll tell Shiki that there’s no girl, that he’s just made a new friend, but then his smile fades as he thinks about this. At what Shiki will think when he learns it’s a boy Izaya’s spending all his time with. And what did it mean anyway, spending all this time with a boy he has little in common with, who is practically his opposite? He knows Shiki wouldn’t be unkind to him, but still. He decides not to say anything.

-

School starts, and he and Shizuo stay friends. Sometimes they have fights too, which the entire student body enjoys, but they always reconcile. Izaya is glad they fight. He has friendships where they never fight because they don’t really care what the other has to say, don’t care about the other’s choices and their consequences.

He comes home from school earlier than usual - Shizuo has a dentist appointment - ready to kick back with a book until Shiki gets home, when he senses at once something is different. He would know this even if it weren’t for the strangers’ shoes at the front door.

He hears them fall silent as he approaches the living room.

Shiki is sat opposite his aunt and uncle, and someone who looks like they might be a solicitor. A fan of papers are on the table they’re kneeling around. The realisation hits so suddenly he can’t breathe.

“You’re getting rid of me.”

“Izaya- “

Shiki starts getting up, a hand extended to him, and Izaya’s eyes blur as he slaps it away.

“You’re getting rid of me.”

He runs up to his room before Shiki can stop him. He wants to smash everything Shiki’s ever given him. What had he done??? He knows he’d been in a few fights at school with Shizuo, that Shiki hadn’t been happy, but they weren’t that big a deal, were they? He was quiet, he was clean, he was polite to Shiki’s guests, he never asked for money or complained. Shiki had never so much as slapped him, never had any reason to. He feels like he’s been pushed off a ship and left to drown.

Shiki comes in and takes hold of Izaya’s wrists.

“Izaya. Izaya. Listen to me. I’m not getting rid of you.”

“Then what the fuck are they doing here with a solicitor and a bunch of fucking papers? Do you think I’m stupid?”

He tries to wrench free but Shiki won’t let him.

“Izaya, I’m looking into adopting you. I hadn’t said anything because a lot of things still need to be clarified, and I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Izaya stares at him through his tears. Shiki lets go of him and pulls him in for a hug.

“Adopt me?”

“Only if that’s what you want, of course. I didn’t want to worry you, but your relatives have been sniffing around. I’m sorry to say that I get the impression that their primary interest in money more so than anything else. Well, more on your uncle’s part than your aunt’s, but she is submitting to him. Now they know who I am they don’t want to do anything stupid, but still, I’d prefer to do this even as just a formality. I should have done it years ago.”

Izaya is stunned. Shiki wants to adopt him.

“Are you sure?”

Shiki chuckles over his head.

“I’m very sure.”

He gives Izaya a pack of tissues from his pocket and lets him wipe himself up.

“Don’t let them take me,” Izaya says.

“I won’t. But it’s complicated. Your parents wanted them to look after you if anything happened to them. I’m not quite sure what the mix up was when you were left alone after the funeral. I can deal with them, but I prefer to do it diplomatically instead of nastily.”

Izaya nods, still wiping his eyes.

“You’ll be 18 in a couple of years anyway, then you’ll have complete freedom.”

“They won’t want me anyway after seeing me like this. I was going to smash up the house. Maybe I should anyway, to scare them off.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Shiki chuckles, pushing Izaya's hair off his forehead. “I can’t leave our guests much longer. Come down and have some tea with us. Show them I’ve brought you up well and not like a little animal.”

He gives a weak little laugh.

“They won’t want me there.”

“It’s you we’re talking about. You have every right to be there.”

He says nothing. He doesn’t want to come down.

“Your aunt’s been asking all about you,” Shiki says, in a more serious tone. “I can send her up if you don’t want to come down.”

“I’ll come down.”

Shiki leaves him, and he goes to the bathroom to wash his face, shaky and exhausted. He changes out of his uniform, combs his hair and comes down, bowing respectfully.

“Hello. Sorry about that.”

He takes a cushion near Shiki, who pours tea into a waiting cup. His aunt is staring at him. Her eyes fill with tears.

“Oh, aren’t you so like your father?”

She comes to him shakily and hugs him, and he can’t not hug her back.

They go to another room to talk. She holds his hands and tells him things about his parents that he’d never known.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says suddenly. “Tell me about school, things you like doing. Are you happy here? I’ve wanted to get in touch for so long but, perhaps you don’t know, your father and my husband fell out just after your sisters were born. We didn’t…”

“I’m really happy here,” he says, when she’s unable to continue. He tells her about school and his friends, about places he and Shiki have been to, about Ikebukuro. She tells him about his cousins, the school she teaches in, their home in the mountains. He and Shiki had stayed nearby for a business trip once. He doesn’t tell her this.

She hugs him just before she leaves.

“Will you write to me? You don’t have to visit if you don’t want to, but promise me you’ll write.”

He promises that he will.

His uncle does not embrace him but gives a low bow. Izaya sees at once that he does not like him, that he is wary of Shiki and this city. He tries to recollect his uncle in his childhood - he remembers his aunt, remembers the smell of her perfume and the sound of her laughing with his mother - but he can’t place this man.

Shiki shuts the door after them.

“Quite an evening.”

Izaya sniffs and doesn’t say anything.

The house phone rings, and Shiki answers.

“For you,” he says after a pause. It’s probably Shizuo. “Shall I say you’re busy?”

“Yes.”

He goes to his room and curls up on the bed, thinking of his parents and his sisters. He thinks especially of his sisters, wishing they’d been able to experience a little more life than the fragment they’d been given.

Shiki follows him up and sits on the bed.

“What do you want for dinner?”

“Nothing. I’m all knotted up.”

“OK. I’ll cover something up in case you change your mind.”

He leaves Izaya to think and closes the door behind him.

-

He’s headachey and groggy the next day, from crying and dehydration and lack of food. And he has double maths for first period.

He makes himself look as miserable as possible before going to Shiki.

“I don’t feel well, Shiki.”

“Because you haven’t eaten,” he says, without looking up from his paper.

“I can’t eat. I feel awful.”

Shiki sighs and looks at him then. He feels Izaya’s forehead to show willing, but his eyebrows are raised.

“I have a three hour meeting I don’t want to go to, but I’m still going.”

“It’s different,” Izaya whines.

Shiki has already gone back to his paper.

“It will do you good to see your friends and have something to concentrate on.”

“But I’m upset.”

“You’re going to school, Izaya, if I have to walk you through the gates myself.”

He gives up.

-

He’s quieter than usual in homeroom, but no-one notices except Shizuo, who asks if he’s OK.

“I’ll tell you later,” he mutters.

He spends most of math thinking instead of working, as he normally does, when he remembers his conversation with Shiki. Shiki is adopting him. He’d been so sad all night he’d forgotten how good this is. He may not have parents and sisters anymore, but that doesn’t mean he has no family.

He drags Shizuo off at lunchtime and tells him everything. Part of him has always been secretly terrified of being sent away since his parents death, that Shiki would have to travel like Kine, or that he’d simply get tired of Izaya. Losing his family had almost broken him. He can’t bear to lose anything else.

“I didn't know that,” Shizuo says. “You should have told me if you were worried about that.”

“But I don’t need to worry about it now, Shizu-chan, that’s the point.”

He’s so happy he hugs Shizuo, who is stunned into silence.

-

Shiki adopts Izaya. It is more paperwork but less ‘diplomatic’ hassle than he anticipated. Izaya writes to his aunt. He doesn’t think he’ll visit, not yet, but he still writes.

He’d completely forgotten the ‘girlfriend’ conversation with everything that had been going on, but with Shizuo coming over so much he’d met Shiki, had met Akabayashi and Kine in passing, and one night Izaya catches Akabayashi and Shiki exchanging a Look and thinks, ‘Oh, shit.’

They hadn’t said anything so presumably it is OK, but Shizuo is terrified of them.

“They’re probably going to do all these background checks on me and meet my parents. They’ll probably cut my fingers off when they find out all the fights I’ve been in.”

“Your stereotyping of the Awakusu-Kai is so wrong,” Izaya tells him, though it’s not far off. “If they didn’t like you you wouldn’t be let in the house so many times, trust me. And they’re conservative but they’re not dinosaurs.”

Still, it’s getting harder to convince him to come over.

Izaya sighs after hanging up on one such conversation.

“Everything all right?”

“Shizuo’s scared of you.”

“What?” Shiki says, looking mildly disturbed.

Izaya sighs again, and explains.

“Oh,” Shiki says. “Should I go out?”

“No. I’m going to keep telling him he’s wrong.”

“You do that.”

Shiki looks like he is about to say something else but doesn’t. For a while now Izaya had sort of sensed Shiki wanting to broach the subject of condoms and sex but had thankfully held back thus far. Izaya can’t think about such a conversation without shuddering. He and Shizuo are in no rush, anyway. They fool around a lot, learn more about each other and go a little further each time, and for now it’s enough.

-

School is almost over. He gained his full inheritance when he turned 18, and now thinks about asking Shiki to help him find his own apartment, in Shinjuku maybe, although he knows Shiki will let him keep his old toys and bedroom here. He didn’t think he’d ever want to leave Ikebukuro, but Shinjuku is close enough. A fresh start would do him good.

Shizuo stops working as a delivery boy and works in bars instead. He doesn’t enjoy this much either, so starts working with his friend Tom. He seems happy.

Izaya becomes an informant: he’d built up a good network off the back of all the jobs he’d done for the Awakusu-Kai growing up. He knows he’d always have a place with them if he wanted one, but part of him had always known he’d end up doing his own thing.

As far as he’s aware, Shiki - or any of them - never have that talk with Shizuo that he’d been dreading. Perhaps Shiki can see its not needed. Or perhaps it will come later, if/when they move in together. Izaya’s not worried. It is a good problem to have, and it is good to be alive.


End file.
